CH179660 - Tax advisers: sanctionable conduct: publishing details of tax adviser sanctionable conduct: what we may publish
While we are under a duty to publish information about a tax adviser who receives a penalty of more than £7,500, we do retain some discretion about the specific information we publish, we may publish some or all of the following details:
- The name of the person who incurs the penalty for sanctionable conduct, including any trading name, previous name or pseudonym.
- The person’s postcode.
- The nature of any business carried on by the person.
- The amount of the penalty.
- The periods or times to which the sanctionable conduct relates.
- Any other information we consider appropriate to publish to make clear the person’s identity.
- Any link
between the sanctionable conduct and any inaccuracy, failure or action as a
result of which information is published under the deliberate tax defaulters’
provisions (FA09/S94)
As a matter of general practice, where publishing a person’s postcode we should only look to publish the first part of the postcode (e.g. ‘SW1’) rather than the full postcode. And in cases where we are informed, or are otherwise aware, that publishing geographical details about a person could cause a serious and verifiable risk to that person’s safety, then we should refrain from publishing such details.
If, when acting as a tax adviser, an individual works or worked for an organisation, then we have the power to publish such information about that organisation as necessary to clearly identify the individual tax adviser. We should only look to publish information about the organisation if it is necessary to identify the individual. The power should not be used as a means of ‘naming and shaming’ the organisation itself. If the tax adviser no longer works for the organisation, we should make that clear in the information we publish. We should also make it clear that the organisation itself has not been found to have engaged in sanctionable conduct, only the individual.
This does not enable us to publish information if the tax adviser is charged a penalty for sanctionable conduct of £7,500 (or less, where the special reduction provisions are used).
FA12/SCH38/PARA28 as amended